The Royal Shakespeare Company will spend several hundred thousand dollars donated by Ohio State University to construct a full-size replica of their new theater in Stratford-upon-Avon, ship it in pieces to NYC, and assemble it in the Park Avenue Armory's massive Drill Hall, which has 55,000 square feet of uncolumned space. In an unprecedented plan announced today, the company will use the replica to stage five plays in repertory in July and August 2011 as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. (The five plays are Antony and Cleopatra, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet and The Winter’s Tale.)
The replica will include a 930-seat steel-framed auditorium on three levels; the farthest seat will be 49 feet away from the edge of the stage. "This is a bigger undertaking than we’ve done in a very long time, so we’re feeling a mixture of excitement and some nervousness," Michael Boyd, the artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, told the Times. "The R.S.C. has been coming to the States for the last 15 years, but we’ve tended to bring one-off productions with actors who are very well known. This will be quite different."
